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Transportation

January 30, 2008

The old saying that a picture is worth thousand words still holds ground. The website of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee has posted a map of the United States showing locations of the structurally deficient bridges on the National Highway System. Some numbers by states are also available on the website, such as 73,784 bridges are structurally deficient out of a total of 597,340 bridges in the U.S. That makes a little more than 12% bridges as structurally deficient. More than 5% bridges on the National Highway System are structurally deficient. In Indiana, 11.3% or 2,066 out of a total of 18,364 bridges are structurally deficient.

The events like the Minnesota Bridge Collapse remind us about our crumbling infrastructure system. A structurally deficient bridge is not necessarily unsafe but this indicates the enormous task ahead of maintaining and upgrading the transportation infrastructure system.

October 17, 2007

Transportation Research Board (TRB) periodically identifies critical issues in transportation that will affect development, economy, and quality of life in communities and in the nation. Prepared in 2006, this report outlines critical issues such as congestion, emergencies, energy and environment, equity, finance, human and intellectual capital, infrastructure, institutions, and the safety. A few highlights are included.

According to Texas Transportation Institute’s urban mobility study, Americans lose $ 65 billion per year and waste 2.3 billion gallons of gasoline in highway congestion. Is our transportation system capable of handling natural and man-made emergencies? The importance and vulnerability of the transportation system were revealed during and after the Hurricane Katrina. Our consumption of energy for transportation is staggering and increasing. We are mainly dependent on energy-intensive transportation system such as highway travel and aviation.

Equity in transportation remains a big challenge. As a major group of population will age, much planning and initiative will be required to provide mobility to that group. Most of the transportation system including highways, waterways, and railroad are fiscally constrained and enough funds are not available for planning and new construction. New sources of finance will be a challenge in the coming years. The public funding for innovation, research, and development in transportation as a proportion of the Gross Domestic Product has decreased. The authors fear that transportation may not provide enough incentive for the best and the brightest to opt as a career.

We have an enormous aging transportation infrastructure. The maintenance of highways, bridges, and transit cost $ 91 billion annually. Maintenance and upgrading of the existing infrastructure will be a challenge in the coming years. The authors raise an apt question- are our institutions ready for the 21st century transportation system? The report discusses the importance of systems approach and new ways of thinking instead of the archaic way of transportation planning by modes. U.S. has lost its leadership in safety and now Australia, Canada, Finland, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom are ahead in comparative fatality rates. Read the whole report here.